Steven Ross

Steven Ross

Steven Ross Director of the Film Division

Steven Ross remains active as a filmmaker and cinematographer. He came to Ohio University in Fall 2002. Prior to that, he was the filmmaking professor at Wesleyan University from 1994-2002.

Film Credits:

Socrates of Kamchatka (2017) co-Director of PhotographySocrates of Kamchatka blends documentary and fiction to tell a story about Anfisa, and her horse - Socrates, who was murdered in 2012 to punish Anfisa for her economic success. The film is a tale about the 'breaking' of horses and people by caring Communist masters. It is about life on the Kamchatka peninsula in the remote far East Russia across from Alaska. It focuses on the village of Dolinovka trapped between the old and the new Russia at a time when the free market chaos is replacing the old Soviet ideals.

Liberia: A Fragile Peace (2006) Producer/Director/Director of Photography A feature documentary tells the story of a war weary people's struggle to rebuild their nation. This timely film goes behind the headlines to explore what really happened to this nation founded by former American slaves, and to realistically appraise the hopes and fears about what may happen there next. As Liberia tries to refute a quarter century of bloodshed, corruption, and collapse, the film tells the story with a stunning diversity of perspectives, voices, and personal experiences. This film is being distributed by California Newsreel and TVF International and appears on Kanopy.

A Viking Landscape (2004) Director/Director of Photography Based on a reading of an Icelandic saga, an international team of archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, and literary historians set out to excavate a Viking age church and burial ground from the time of Iceland's conversion to Christianity (1000 AD). The short film documents the archaeological dig and archaeological methods.

Fishers of Dar (2001) Co-director/Director of Photography This ethnographic film explores the continuity and integrity of traditional fishing practices in contemporary Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dar es Salaam is a metropolis of three million people, yet the city's demand for fish is entirely met by equipment and methods practiced there for centuries. Fishers of Dar has been screened throughout the world in numerous festivals and venues including the Fine Arts Cinema in Berkeley, CA. It has also been selected to be part of two "Best of Festival" traveling tours throughout the United States. This film is being distributed by Documentary Educational Resources and appears on Kanopy.. Awards: Best documentary (co-winner) 30th Athens International Film/Video Festival 2003; Juror's Choice (First Prize) 22nd Black Maria Film/Video Festival 2002; Golden Dhow Chairman's Choice 5th Zanzibar International Film Festival 2002; Best Cinematography 40th Ann Arbor Film Festival 2002

Mark Twain's Neighborhood: Nook FarmDirector of Photography Connecticut Public Television. Directed, produced and written by Roynn Lisa Simmons in cooperation with the Mark Twain House, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, the Antiquarian & Landmarks Society. Documentary on the Nook Farm neighborhood and its notable citizenry in Hartford, CT. Telly Award Finalist in Cinematography.

Empire of CrimeDirector of Photography Towers Productions. A&E special on the history of the New York Mafia. Jonathan Towers and Bill Curtis, executive producers, Ariel Schaffner, producer.

Educational Background:

Teaches:

David O. Thomas

Guest lecturer at the Communication University of China in Beijing in May 2013.

David O. Thomas

Guest lecturer at the Communication University of China in Beijing in May 2013.

David O. Thomas Professor of Film

David O. Thomas

David Thomas, Professor of Film teaches courses in screenwriting, producing, and introductory courses in film history and analysis. He also teaches regularly at the Superior Screenwriting Colony and has taught in the Peoples Republic of China and in Croatia. His research interest is in writing and developing historical screenplays.

Thomas served as Director of OU Film for over a decade. He has served as Editorial Vice President of the University Film and Video Association and also as Conference Vice President. Thomas currently serves as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the University Film and Video Foundation. On campus, Thomas serves as Vice-Chair of the OU Faculty Senate, Chair of the University Curriculum Council and as the first of two faculty Representatives to the Ohio University Board of Trustees.

Educational Background:

Ph.D., Southern Illinois University

M.A., Southern Illinois University

B.F.A., Jacksonville University

Teaches:

Producing

Screenwriting

Film History

Natasha Maidoff

"Live Cinema! The Cowgirl"

Natasha Maidoff

Natasha Maidoff's work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and in the online archive at the Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Her films The Orange Orange, Is There A Cure For My Friend and Traverse have toured internationally and have been screened at Guggenheim New York and the Pecci Museum in Italy. As a featured artist on the Venice Artwalk 2015, Maidoff’s multi-channel video installation Live Cinema! The Sleepwalker was shown at Google Los Angeles Headquarters. With her Live Cinema! series, Maidoff uses multi-channel video projections to create a visual arena for performance.

Maidoff is a returning fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Art and recently won a grant as an Artist in Residence from the Santa Monica National Park Service. She has shown her work at Beyond Baroque, the Electric Lodge and at SACI in Florence, Italy. She is on the National Council of the National Museum of the American Indian.

Educational Background:

M.F.A., Film and Television, University of California, Los Angeles

B.A., Creative Writing, Oberlin College, Ohio

Teaches:

First Year MFA Film Production

First Year MFA Screenwriting

Rajko Grlic

Border Post, 2006

Rajko Grlic

Rajko Grlic was born in 1947 in Zagreb, Croatia. He directed his first amateur film at the age of 15, and his first professional short at 18. He studied and graduated in film directing at FAMU in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1971, mentored by professor Elmar Klos.

As director and scriptwriter, he has worked on some twenty short films and more than fifteen television documentaries – which won him numerous awards. As scriptwriter and co-writer, he has worked on eleven feature films and a ten-episode TV series, The Reckless Years, directed by Srdjan Karanovic. This work won him a dozen international prizes.

He is Ohio Eminent Scholar in Film at Ohio University, Athens, OH and Guest Professor of Film at Art School, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. He has taught Film Direction and has delivered lectures and workshops at more than thirty universities in Europe and America.

He is member of the European Film Academy, of the Croatian Film Directors Association and the American Scriptwriters Association. His work in film has received, among others, the Nazor prize, life achievement award of the City of Denver and the title of honorary citizen of Montpellier, France.

His films have been shown in cinemas across all five continents, they were included in competition programs of leading world festivals, from Cannes onwards, and they have received more than fifty international prizes.

Director and Scriptwriter Credits:

2016 The Constitution

2009 Just Between Us

2006 Border Post

2002 Josephine

2001 Who Wants to be a Presidentdocumentary Co-Director

1991 Charuga

1989 That Summer of White Roses

1987 Three for Happiness

1984 In the Jaws of Life

1981 You Love Only Once

1978 Bravo Maestro

1974 If It Kills Me

Producing Credits:

2003 Lucky Kid - Directed by Igor Mirkoic

2001 Who Wants to be a President

1991 Charuga

1990 Virdzina - Directed by Srdjan Karanoic

He wrote, directed and produced How to Make Your Movie; An Interactive Film School, which won eight international awards, including the New York Grand Prix for Best World Multi-media in 1998.

Just Between Us (Trailer, 2009)

Border Post (Trailer, 2006)

Thomas Hayes

Thomas Hayes

Thomas Hayes Assistant Professor of Post-production

Tom Hayes

Originally from Vermont, Tom Hayes has been making films since he was a kid, winning the Kentucky Educational Television Young Peoples Film Competition when he was 15.

As a young man he worked as a deck hand, shipping out of New York on cargo ships. While seafaring started as a strategy to pay for film school, trips into third and fourth world ports became a profound formative experience. Tom received a B.G.S. degree with Empasis in Cinema and Philosophy from Ohio University in 1977.

Since then Hayes has been running his own film production company, producing long form documentaries and providing production services on hundreds of commercial projects. His personal documentary work has, for the last two decades, focused on issues of identity.

Educational Background:

BGS Ohio University 1977

Teaches:

Digital Editing

Art of Editing

Compositing

On-Line Post-Production

Documentary Development

Shelley Delaney

Head of Performance

Shelley Delaney

Head of Performance

Professor of Performance

Shelley Delaney

Shelley Delaney is an actor and director.She has acted at theaters across the country including: The Cincinnati Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Bay Street Theatre, Victory Gardens (Joseph Jefferson nomination for Free Man of Color), GeVa, Cleveland Play House, and many others. She has premiered new work at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Plays in Process, La Mama, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Circle Rep Lab, HERE the Ohio Theater and The Women in Theater Festival. In the past three years, she has played Tammy Faye Baker inTammy Faye’s Final Audition at five different venues. Shelley’s film work includes Radio Days, and the independent feature films Claire in Motion, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (Berlinale 2014) and Hero Tomorrow.

Her directing credits include the world premiere of The Surrogate by Patricia Cotter at Centenary Stage Company, The Cake at Tantrum Theater, multiple productions at the Monomoy Theatre, Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble and the 78th Street Theater Lab/Drilling Company in NYC; as well as Solo Arts, PSNBC and HBO/Aspen Comedy Festival.

Delaney heads the Performance Area at the Ohio University School of Theater and has directed a range of plays encompassing classics and new work at OU. She also teaches the Bootcamp Acting course for 1st-Year MFA Film students, serves on many film thesis committees, and acts as a liaison between the Theater and Film Schools.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:

MFA in Acting from Rutgers University

BA in Speech/Theater/English from Marietta College

TEACHES:

Special Topics in Theatre Arts: MFA Film Students

John L. Butler Jr. C.A.S.

John L. Butler Jr. C.A.S.

John L. Butler Jr., C.A.S.

Peterson Sound Studio Manager, Instructor of Sound Recording

John Butler

John Butler has been teaching field sound recording and mixing techniques at OU Film for over 20 years. His diverse portfolio includes sound for many films and his work as a sound engineer for national television programs is well recognized. American Cinematographer magazine published an article by John and he is an active member of The Cinema Audio Society and The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He creates sound designs for art installations, lectures at numerous universities and seminars, and is one of the leaders in audio restoration techniques. He continues to stay on the cutting edge of audio technologies.

The door to John L. Butler office is rarely closed and, more often than not, full of graduate students seeking advice, a soda, or the chance to see John's personal collection of audio equipment he has gathered throughout the years. John is much more than just an instructor to the School of Film; he is an ever-present linchpin to a community of filmmakers from around the world. He actively reaches out to OU Film Alumni and enjoys seeing past students visit his office in Athens.

These are a few of John's past work experiences in the field and are much better expressed by John while eating a piece of candy in his office.

John Butler & Mr. Fred Rodgers

Sound Director - Film Department at Mod Art Pictures ('61 - '68)

Audio Design Engineer - Designed audio system for Newark La Guardia and Kennedy International arrivals and wrote specification for the new fiber optic closed circuit television system for the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels.

Consultant for the Nigerian Television Network and The Liberian Television Network in each one's respective country. ('82 - '83)

Director, Film Sound Department - From 1968 to 1977 at WQED Television, Pittsburgh, PA where he designed new communication and audio visual systems using digital and fiber optics for audio for all media arts.

Field Audio Recorder National Geographic Film Specials

Audio Engineer and Technical Consultant - Mr. Roger's Neighborhood; he also appears as himself as a special guest in an episode.

Teaches:

Sound

The Black Bear Award

In honor of John Butler's dynamic presence at Ohio University as a Professor and Mentor, the Athens Film & Video Festival initiated the Black Bear Award in 2008. This $500 prize is given to the film/video that demonstrates the best use of sound.

Rafal Sokolowski

Three Mothers, 2010

Rafal Sokolowski

Three Mothers, 2010

Rafal Sokolowski Assistant Professor of Film

Rafal Sokolowski is an award winning film and theatre director, a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada (Acting), and an apprentice of the National Theatre Academy of Krakow (Directing). His films have screened at many festivals around the world including Los Angeles, Barcelona, Warsaw, Reel World and CFC Worldwide in Toronto, Krakow, Ourense, Bolzano, San Juan, Vilnius, Sedicicorto, and Nouveau Cinema in Montreal. Rafal’s latest film Seventh Day won the Best Short Film Award at Toronto’s EKRAN in 2012.

Rafal is the Artistic Director of Blind Dog Films, a company specializing in developing and producing neo realist narrative fiction working with prominent screen talent such as Brent Carver (Emmy, Gemini), Kristin Booth (Genie, Gemini), and Camilla Scott (Dora). His films are supported by the National Film Board of Canada, the Canada and Ontario Arts Councils, and the Bravo!FACT. He is also the founder of WeAreCollective, a network of directors and creative producers based in Toronto.

In the past, Rafal taught film production, screenwriting, and directing at York University, and acting at the University of Ryerson Theatre School. He has taught as guest artist at the National Theatre School of Canada, Warsaw College of Communication and Media, Soulpepper Theatre Company, and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto.

Educational Background:

M.F.A., Film and Video Production, York University

Certificate of Graduation, Acting, The National Theater School of Canada

B.S., Biology, University of Toronto

Teaches:

Second Year MFA Film Production

Practices of Film Criticism

Directing

Demo Reel

Seventh Day (2011) – Trailer

Three Mothers (2010) – Trailer

Steve De Jarnatt

Steve De Jarnatt

Steve de jarnatt VISITING Assistant Professor of FILM

Steve De Jarnatt began making experimental shorts and documentaries in his home state of Washington. His screenplay for Miracle Mile made the very first “Ten Best Unproduced Scripts in Hollywood” list. He struggled eight years to finally get it made (as director) and after playing in competition at Sundance—it continues to screen around the world in retrospective. (A Blu Ray special edition is being released July 2015 by Kino Lorber Classics)

He has written, directed and produced on numerous projects in film and television—(twenty-six qualified years in the WGA and twenty in the DGA), doing a wide spectrum of both drama and comedy— Aeon Flux, American Gothic, ER, Nash Bridges, X Files, Cherry 2000, Strange Brew, and Lizzie McGuire among his credits. He has taught at various institutions and mentored (early in their careers) such successful writers and filmmakers as: Peter Berg, Bryan Singer, Robert Harmon, Catherine Hardwicke, Peyton Reed, John Schultz and John Altschuler.

He recently went back to school, receiving an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch College (LA). His first published fiction, Rubiaux Rising, was selected by guest editor, Alice Sebold, for The Best American Short Stories 2009. Other work has appeared in Cincinnati Review, New England Review, Missouri Review, and New Stories from the Midwest 2013. He was a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction at Sewanee Writer’s Conference 2012 and Fiction Scholar at Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference 2013.

FEATURE FILM CREDITS:

Miracle Mile (Writer/Director)

Cherry 2000 (Director)

Strange Brew (Co-Writer)

Educational Background:

Antioch University Los Angeles - MFA in Creative Writing – Fiction

American Film Institute, Beverly Hills, CA - Screenwriting Fellow

Evergreen State College, Olympia Wash. B.A. Film and Communications

Occidental College, Los Angeles (Art Major)

teaches:

First Year MFA Film Production

Feature Screenwriting Workshop

Louis-Georges Schwartz

Louis-Georges Schwartz

Louis-Georges Schwartz Associate Professor of Film Studies

Head of the MA Program in Film Studies, Louis-Georges Schwartz teaches contemporary cinema, film analysis, and film theory. His book, Mechanical Witness, A History of Motion Picture Evidence in U.S. Courts, published by the Oxford University press is the first cultural and legal history charting the changing role and theoretical implications of film and video use as courtroom evidence.

He is working on a second manuscript on film and biopolitics entitled Cinema and the Meaning of Life.

Educational Background:

M.A./Ph.D., University Of Iowa, Department of Communication Studies, Film Studies Division

B.A., University of California at Berkeley

Academic Positions:

Associate Professor, Director of M.A. Program in Film Studies, Fall 2009 - Present, Ohio University

Ofer Eliaz

Acts of Erasure: The Limits of the Image in Naomi Uman's Early Films.

Ofer Eliaz

Acts of Erasure: The Limits of the Image in Naomi Uman's Early Films.

Ofer Eliaz Assistant Professor of Film Studies

Ofer Eliaz is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Ohio University. He teaches courses in European Cinema, Contemporary Film Theory, The Horror Film, Genre Cinema, and Film Historiography. He is currently completing a book, Cinematic Cryptonymies: Figurations of the Unseen Image, that develops the psychoanalytic theories of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok in relation to film studies. The book traces the history of absent and taboo images in post-war film. Ofer Eliaz has recently presented work on Georges Franju, Naomi Uman, and acts of erasure in European and experimental film.

Educational Background:

Ph.D., Film Studies, University of Iowa, Dept. of Cinema and Comparative Literature

"All that Remains Unseen... Unseen Images in the Contemporary American Avant-Garde." Forthcoming in a collection edited by Nicole Brenez, date and publication to be determined.

Conference Presentations:

SCMS Conference

UFVA Conference

Cinema and Comparative Literature Colloquium, University of Iowa

Teaches:

Film History I

Science Fiction Film as Visual Historiography

Hollywood Since 1960

Postwar European Cinemas

Classical Hollywood

Postwar Japanese Cinema

Film Historiography

Film Genre

Film Realism

The Taboo Image

Godard's Historiographies

The European Fantastique

Lorraine Wochna

Lorraine Wochna

Lorraine Wochna

Subject Librarian for Film, Theater, English and African-American Studies.

Lorraine Wochna

Lorraine is the subject librarian for the Film & Theater Divisions, Dept. of English and African American Studies. She orders books, journals, DVD's, helps with research, and instructs classes. Lorraine is our support and link between Alden Library and OU Film.

She is also a member of the Brick Monkey Theatre Ensemble.

Educational Background:

M.A., Film, Ohio University (in process)

M.A., Theatre, Ohio University

M.L.S., Pratt Institute NYC

Paula Morrison

Paula Morrison

Paula Morrison Administrative Associate for Film and Interdisciplinary Arts

Paula Morrison

Paula joined Ohio University in December of 2013.

She is the Administrative Associate for Interdisciplinary Arts and the Division of Film in the College of Fine Arts.

In her spare time, she enjoys long walks, reading, spending time with her husband and two children, who are both currently attending college, and friends.

Educational Background:

B.S., Bowling Green State University

Erin Shevaugn Schlumpf

Erin Shevaugn Schlumpf

Dr. erin Shevaugn schlumpf Assistant Professor of Film Studies

Erin Shevaugn Schlumpf is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Ohio University. Her research focuses on aesthetic responses to trauma: how film and literary form are imprinted by past disasters. Her current book manuscript, “Melancholy, Ambivalence, Exhaustion: National Trauma and Global Postmodernism,” uses case studies from Post-Occupation France and Post-Tiananmen Square China to reveal a shared language of trauma, an imaginative reckoning with the past in the present. Erin Shevaugn Schlumpf's courses examine how image and text interrogate national, racial, gendered, and sexual identity politics. She has previously held teaching positions at Seattle University, Simon Fraser University, and Harvard University.

Book Review: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Situations: Cultural Studies in the East Asian Context, 7.2, 2014.

teaches:

Film Studies I

Film History I

Border Crossings in Film

David Colagiovanni

Video Still from Dinner Music

David Colagiovanni

Video Still from Dinner Music

David Colagiovanni

director, athens center for film and video + director,athens international film and video festival

colagiovanni.net

David Colagiovanni is an artist and composer who works with video, sound and space. He has been an artist in residence at Yaddo, The Morehead Planetarium, Small Craft Advisory Press, and Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India. His video and sound works have been exhibited in festivals and galleries internationally including: The British Ceramics Biennial, Neon Digital Arts Festival in Scotland, File Hypersonica in São Paulo, Brazil, The Zeiss Planetarium in Germany, Gallery SC in Croatia, Simultan Media Arts Festival in Romania, The Maine International Film Festival and the Immersive Film Festival in Portugal. Recent exhibitions in the US have included solo and collaborative shows at HereArt in NYC, Lump Gallery, The Morehead Planetarium and The Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh. Colagiovanni is a member of the North Carolina artist group Team Lump and a considerable amount of his practice exists in collaboration with artist Melissa Haviland under the moniker of Haviland & Colagiovanni. He is currently the Director of the Athens Center for Film and Video, and the Athens International Film + Video Festival. He teaches experimental film in the Film Division at Ohio University. Colagiovanni received his BFA from University of Maine - Orono and his MFA from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. More info about his work can be found at www.colagiovanni.net

educational background:

MFA from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

BFA at The University of Maine, Orono

teaches:

Experimental Production and Presentation

Media Arts Management

Film Festival Practicum

Helene Siebrits

Head of the Costume Program

Helene Siebrits

Head of the Costume Program

Associate Professor of Theater

Helene Siebrits

Helene Siebrits is a costume designer and illustrator. She has designed, draped, and created costumes for a wide range of genres including contemporary plays, musicals, Shakespeare plays, opera, film, and dance. At Ohio University Helene has designed costumes for the School of Dance, Theater and Film. Helene has also had the privilege to design costumes for the inaugural season and second season of Tantrum Theater.

Siebrits has had many collaborations with the iconoclastic opera director, Peter Sellars. They worked together on Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms(Stravinsky) at the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix en Provence. They also collaborated on the double-bill production of Iolanta/Persephone(Tchaikovsky/Stravinsky) for Opéra de Lyon, Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix en Provence, and the Teatro Real in Madrid as well as on productions at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, La Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Sydney Opera House, the Luzerner Theatre in Switzerland and Santa Fe Opera.

Siebrits has designed costumes regionally at the Latino Theatre in Los Angeles, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, the South Coast Repertory Theater, Texas Shakespeare Festival, West Virginia Public Theatre, and Festival Antigonish in Nova Scotia. And, as a costume draper, she has created bespoke costumes for respected designers including Paul Brown, Claire Mitchell, Robert Innes Hopkins, Gideon Davey, Dunya Ramicova and Martin Pakledinaz. Siebrits' costume creations have been seen on the stage at several venues in North America and world-wide. She has also draped costumes at companies including Shakespeare Santa Cruz, California Shakespeare, American Musical Theater in San Jose, and Santa Fe Opera.

Currently, Siebrits is working with Amrita Performing Arts Artistic Director, Chey Chankethya, on two new dance narratives that will be performed in China and Japan. She will also work with Amrita Performing Arts performers, opera director Peter Sellars, and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen on Persephone (Stravinsky) at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2019.

Siebrits is an Associate Professor of Costume Design and Head of the Costume Program at Ohio University. She teaches foundational drawing and design, intermediate and advanced rendering, text analysis for designers, and costume history. Helene is particularly interested in the cross-disciplinary approach to design solutions for set, lighting, projection, and costumes. She served as the costume designer on the MFA thesis film, Departure, and has been a member of the thesis committees for film students.

Siebrits received her MFA in Design from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television. She holds a BA in Theatre, Magna Cum Laude from UCLA and a BA in Fashion Design and Technology from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Helene is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 and is an active member of USITT.

Melissa Ervin

Melissa Ervin

Melissa joined Ohio University in May of 2016. She is the Administrative Associate for Interdisciplinary Arts and the Division of Film in the college of Fine Arts. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, painting, and gardening.